


Arrive Where We Started

by Clockwise2A



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Set in 2027 so Deniss is 27, Steph and Chris are 40-ish, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:50:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21822301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clockwise2A/pseuds/Clockwise2A
Summary: When Deniss is 26, he competes in his third and final Olympic Games.A story about finding your own way (back home)
Relationships: Stéphane Lambiel/Christopher Trevisan, Stéphane Lambiel/Christopher Trevisan/Deniss Vasiljevs
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	Arrive Where We Started

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to MyDogGoesWoof for beta reading, and thanks to Team Champéry for being the sunshine in this depressing world.

We shall not cease from exploration  
and the end of all our exploring  
will be to arrive where we started  
and know the place for the first time.

– T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding

When Deniss is 26, he competes in his third and final Olympic Games.

At the end of the season, he takes stock of his three quads, the state of the field, the persistent ache in his knee, and knows it’s time to stop. 

What do skaters do when they retire? They become coaches. They give back to the sport. And so Deniss goes back to Daugavpils and opens a skating school. 

It isn’t that simple, of course. There is more than a year of planning, conniving, and sheer hard work. He’s stayed up long nights and pulled in favors to find a rink with enough ice time, get his coaching accreditation, figure out a business plan, to hire assistants. 

But now it’s official, and the Latvian Skating Academy is open, inaugurated with a summer training camp for promising local and international skaters, and a guest coach, Stéphane Lambiel.

All along the way, he’s been talking to Steph and to Chris multiple times a week, emailing over small details, questions of bureaucracy, how to handle the personalities and the visas of his students. 

It’s different, though, to be together in person. Over Skype, he hadn’t noticed the extra laugh lines that have formed around Chris’ eyes. He had forgotten the hum Steph makes in the back of his throat when he’s making up his mind.

It’s clear from the start that Deniss is going to have his own style as a coach. He is more interested in the physics and theory behind the technique than Steph, and maybe less insistent on a skater feeling what he wants them to feel in a motion. But their styles complement each other. They’ve always been most in synch, most at home, circling each other on the ice. Every once in a while, he looks up from a lesson to see Chris in the bleachers, deep in conversation with the rink administrator, and that feels right too.

He notices again how Steph gives his complete and total attention to each student, no matter how basic their skill level. He tries to emulate that focus; knows he has a long way to go before he is as generous or as patient. He’s laughing more, though, smiling at his students’ antics, and in Steph’s presence, he feels less weighed down by the role he’s trying to play. 

When the littlest student, 7-year-old Adelina, lands her first axel, Deniss carries her around the rink for a victory lap, Steph following behind and cheering.

The other coaches and skaters are staying at a hotel near the rink, but Deniss chose to host Steph and Chris at his place in the city center. It isn’t a very big apartment, and having guests means Deniss is sleeping on the couch to give them the double bed, but he can’t find it in himself to mind. 

He’d stayed with his parents the first couple of months he’d been back in the country, but it had felt strange and stifling. Though he’d always missed his family, he hadn’t lived full-time with them since he was 10 years old. They hadn’t known how to manage it now, too affectionate at first, and then too uncertain about how to relate to their adult son, who is almost a stranger.

So, he’d found his own place, and it’s plain, and a little cramped, but it’s his. It’s a far cry from his ideal, but there’s a sunny corner where he can draw, and the kitchen isn’t too bad. It feels right to share this space with Chris and Steph. With the warmth of their company, Deniss realizes just how lonely this apartment has been, just how hard it has been trying to make it on his own. He was doing it, yes. But it’s been a difficult path, and he’s missed them.

On the last night of the camp, after the celebratory dinner out at a restaurant, the three of them sit around Deniss’ slightly wobbly Ikea kitchen table, a bottle of wine half-drunk between them. The laughter and the conversation about old friends winds down to companionable silence.

Finally, Chris smiles. “Well done, Deniss,” he says softly. “Congratulations. You are building something special here.” Steph divides the rest of the wine and raises his glass: “To coach Deniss, and the skating school of Latvia.”

They all drink. Deniss thinks, this is my moment. I’m going to say something now, or I never will.

“Chris. Steph…. Do you remember that night in Portugal?” Stéphane’s face is blank, but understanding is starting to dawn on Chris’ face. 

They’d been on vacation, four or five years before. After a day in the sun and wine at dinner, the cool air out on the balcony was lovely. Music floated up from a neighbor’s garden, and Steph, in one of those moods where his joy bubbles over, had danced first with Chris, and then with Deniss, hips close together, and head tucked into his neck. Deniss held him a little more tightly when Steph’s lips brushed his jaw. Chris had been watching them all the while, but he didn’t feel self-conscious. He just felt right, held and loved. He’d barely breathed, held Steph close, smelled the scent of his cologne. At that moment, they had been on the brink of something, Deniss was sure before a car horn broke the spell. Deniss stepped back, pulled himself together a little, and said, “I think it’s late, and I should go to bed.” 

“If that’s what you want,” Chris said slowly, and Deniss had tasted the lie in the back of his through when he repeated that he was tired. He had lain awake that night and listened to the sounds that made it through the thin walls of the pensión and wanted in a way he’d never let himself want before. He wanted to be the one to make Steph groan like that. Or maybe to be the one Chris fucked until the bed frame hit the wall. The hunger inside him wasn’t picky. Maybe someday, that hunger said, and he’s never been able to totally squash that hope. 

In the present, he makes himself go on. “I’ve always wondered what might have happened, if I hadn’t been scared then. I know you sometimes sleep with other people. I know about Max and Tanya. I’ve wanted...and I never asked...but now...” 

His words run out, but they all know the rest. “Now, I’m no longer your student. Now I’m a coach in my own damn right. Now I’ve made my own independent life, never mind that’s it’s a weak copy of yours...” The silence between them is many things, but it is not comfortable. He looks up again and finds enough courage to call the question. “Would you take me to bed?”

Steph tips back in his chair, runs a hand through his messy hair. He looks shocked. But it is Chris who says, “Are you sure? Are you really sure this is what you want?”

“I’ve thought about it for so long. Please.” Deniss could say more, but that was already closer to begging than his pride could take. 

Steph stands, and Deniss is afraid he’s going to walk out, but he is only coming closer to kneel next to Deniss’ chair. He reaches up with a graceful gesture to take his face in his hands, “My Deniss. Our Deniss. Have we denied you anything? But I don’t want to hurt you...”

Looking down into his dark eyes, Deniss realizes he can’t stand to wait another second, to try to put his case in words. He puts a hand around the nape of the older man’s neck and leans down to kiss him. The briefest resistance, and then he is being kissed back. Deniss could lose himself in that kiss, the taste of wine, the heat of his mouth, the way Steph yields to him. Surrounded by his familiar scent, he lets himself truly feel the attraction he’d long tried to bury. His mind is stuttering, half lost in the physical sensation, and half repeating, this is happening. It is actually happening. Steph’s hands slide down to Deniss’ shoulders, burning hot. He wants those hands on his skin, he wants them closer. But Deniss knows the deal isn’t sealed yet. His blood pounding, he pulls back and, still cradling Stéphane’s head in his hands, looks at Chris. The acknowledged voice of reason, if they are going to stop, he’ll be the one to say so...

There is a look on Chris’ face that Deniss has never seen before. A little of the familiar affection, but overriding that, sheer hunger. And with a swooping in his stomach, Deniss knows there is no going back.

“Chris, come here.” 

“The view is pretty great from over here.” But he nonetheless gets up.

His fingers grip Deniss’ hair as he turns his face up, but his kiss is gentle. Deniss can’t help the shiver that runs through him, and with that, Chris nips a little at his lips, until Deniss lets him in. His beard is soft against the skin that Stéphane’s stubble had started to chafe. Steph’s hand tightens on Deniss’ thighs, and when Chris pauses, all three men are flushed and breathing unevenly.

“What do you want?” Chris asks.

Steph leans his face against Deniss’ inner thigh. His breath is warm. “I want him right here,” he says. His hand runs up Deniss’ thighs and cups his cock. He jerks, can’t help pushing toward the contact, seeking more. Steph looks up at him with burning eyes. “I want to taste you. I want to make you feel good. Will you let me?” Deniss doesn’t break eye contact as he lifts his hips and slips his pants down. He’s already hard, and he can’t help the whine that escapes when Steph starts with just a kiss to the tip of his cock. Deniss can think of nothing but Stephane’s tongue starting to swirl around him, nothing except for Chris’ fingers, trailing, casual, almost tickling, over his jaw, down his collarbone, up the side of his neck, never predictable. He feels suspended between them, a plaything, ready for them to use. And with that thought, he can only picture it that way. Being between them, letting them fuck him with the passion they fuck each other. None of this cautious distance. He reaches up and pulls Chris into another kiss, open-mouthed, hunger meeting hunger. 

Chris pulls Deniss’ shirt up over his head. With more skin bared to his exploration, his hands wander wider. He twists Deniss’ nipples, and when he jerks at the touch, alternates between a gentle rub and deeper hold. Deniss arches into the touch. Stéphane takes him deeper, endless warmth. He slides his fingers into his soft hair, and he wants to thrust, and barely clinging to the edge of his control, gasps 

“Bed.”

Steph sits back, grinning. 

Deniss almost trips in his hurry to stand with his pants still around his ankles. Steph laughs a little, and sitting on the floor, helps Deniss get fully undressed. 

In the bedroom, Deniss is naked, and the other two are fully clothed. It’s awkward for a moment, and he reaches out, begging for contact.

“What do you want?” Steph asks? “You’ve wanted this a long time, hmm? Tell me what you thought about.” 

“Everything...just everything.” He takes a deep breath and tries to pick one thing. “Will you let me undress you?”

Steph nods, and Deniss fingers find the buttons of his shirt. He remembers, for a second, watching Steph try on this shirt for the first time, and wear it to karaoke. 

He forces himself to concentrate on the buttons, to let the urgency of his arousal not rush him through this night. Steph’s chest has sparse hair along with a thin layer of muscle. His necklace is as warm as his skin. 

He pushes the shirt off his shoulders and presses a kiss against Steph’s sternum. He feels two pairs of eyes on him before Chris advises, “his nipples are sensitive.” 

“Oh, really?” He drops his head and licks across Steph’s right nipple, and Steph convulses, dropping to the bed. “Not fair!”

Deniss grins. “Oooo this is interesting.” He tries to chase Steph and follow up on the potential of his other nipple. What follows is an entirely undignified scuffle that ends up with Deniss firmly pinned to the bed. He doesn’t exactly mind. Steph’s ass is pressing down almost exactly where he wants it, and he squirms a little. 

Then Steph practically shrieks as Chris reaches around and runs his hands over his chest. Steph pulls him down onto the bed, too. Kissing him as he sprawls across Deniss until they emerge in a giggling tangle of limbs.

Chris pulls off his shirt and stands to shuck his pants.

Deniss reaches for Stephane’s belt.

With dignity less intact, but smiles all around, they arrange themselves so that Steph has his back to the headboard and Deniss between his legs. Now it’s Chris’ turn to kiss his way up Deniss’ muscled thighs and to open his mouth for him. 

He licks down his length and takes his balls into his mouth. Deniss feels like he’s going to come out of his skin. Steph’s hands lift his thighs, and Chris spreads him wider until he can flick against his ass hole. 

Steph is nibbling against his ear, and whispers, “you should turn over. Chris is really really really good at this.”

Deniss groans. He wants more. He wants it all. He turns onto his hands and knees. He is beyond embarrassment, as Chris licks into him. He’s boneless and floating, and consequences are happening on another planet.

All that matters is the feel of Chris’ tongue and Steph’s cock right in front of his nose. This. This is what he wants. He swallows around Steph’s cock as Chris’ finger breaches him. “Alright?” Chris asks, and Deniss groans and pushes back his hips. He wills himself to relax, to open for them. He wants to be filled up, and wants them to use him, to surround him.

Chris pushes in slowly until Deniss can think of nothing else. Chris’ hand tangles with his on the sheets. “Let loose, love,” Steph says. “He’s ready.” Deniss starts sucking again, until he has to lose all sense of finesse as Chris picks up speed, and hits the place inside him that starts to turn him molten. 

He comes before he knows he’s ready, before Chris can get a hand on him. His arms weaken, and he almost chokes, but Chris pulls him up and back against his chest, driving his cock deep into him from this angle. 

Deniss groans. It’s matched by Steph, who has got a hand free and is stroking himself. “You are so beautiful. My dears.” Deniss keeps his eyes on Steph and uses his burning thighs to rise up and slam back down against Chris’ hips, once, twice. He’s sensitive and it’s the edge between pain and pleasure, and Chris’ teeth sink into his shoulder. His arm is like a vice around his chest as he comes. 

Steph is barely a breath behind him. 

Chris kisses over Deniss shoulder, soothing the mark he made. Slowly, aching they separate, and Chris eases Deniss down against the mattress. He smiles at Steph, who reaches for him. 

They let their lips brush as they breathe in each other’s air, too exhausted to say anything until Chris comes back with a washcloth. Deniss might have found words then, but he was asleep, head pillowed on Steph’s shoulder before he knew it.

—-/

Steph is still sleeping when Deniss wakes up. He’s curled up facing him, dark hair across the pillow, and a hand draped over Deniss’ waist. Deniss watches his chest rise and fall. He half-wishes for a camera, or better yet, pencils. He tries to commit to memory the way the lines in Steph’s face are smoothed out in sleep. The angle of his jaw is so familiar, and yet totally new, now that he’s seen his lips stretched around his cock.

“How do you feel?” He hadn’t realized Chris was awake too. The older man rubs his hand slowly up and down Deniss’ arm. His chest is solid and warm against his back. 

“I feel...I feel a lot. Happy, I think.” He is noticing all of the places they are still touching, even in sleep, and wishes he could stay suspended like this forever. Joy is still a large part of what Deniss is feeling, but anxiety has started creeping in.

“Mmmm. I’m glad. I’m happy too,” Chris says. They are quiet for a minute, and Deniss is starting to drift back to sleep when Chris says, “I hope last night was what you imagined. I always figured you wanted Steph, but that maybe you didn’t want me. That that’s why you never said anything.”

“You can’t still think that, do you?” He wants to turn to see his face, but that would disturb Steph. 

“I don’t, now. So long as you are happy.”

Deniss lets himself relax, feeling how their breath matches. He is safe here, and it is ridiculous to be shy now about asking for what he needs, not when Chris was so vulnerable. 

“Chris, what happens next?” The stroking stops, then starts again. 

“I think we have a couple of options. And Steph should really be awake for this conversation.” That makes sense, but the other man is still fast asleep, and Deniss can’t help himself. 

“Options?”

“Well, I think they mostly involve us getting up this morning, and you driving Steph and me to the airport like we planned. But after that, it’s mostly up to you. You asked for one night, and we could leave it there.” 

“Is that want you want?” 

Chris is quiet for a long while, and Deniss’ heart sinks.

“I don’t know, Deniss. Last night was great,” he presses a kiss against Deniss’ shoulder. “I think you were right that this was a long time coming. And now that I know what it’s like to have you like this, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want you with us again.” 

“But...” Deniss prompts. He knows there is another shoe waiting to drop. 

“I just want what’s best for you, and this will always have to be secret. I want you to be happy and get to have a real relationship. I don’t want to get in the way of that.” Deniss lets that sink in. 

“I was seeing a guy earlier this year.” That wasn’t what he means to say, but once the words are out of his mouth, he knows he has to continue. “He was scared to be seen with me in public. His old boyfriend was beaten up for being gay. So, we never went anywhere but his house. That’s not exactly why we broke up, but it didn’t help.” He suddenly feels so sad, not over Dima, who hadn’t really mattered that much in the scheme of his life, but for himself. “Chris, if I stay here, I’m not going to have that kind of partnership. Not for a long time, anyway.” 

“I’m sorry. It’s not perfect in Switzerland, but I’ve never had that kind of threat.” He speaks slowly, seeking the right words. “I want to tell you to move, to get out of here, but I know it’s not that simple. You do know you are always welcome with us, though.”

There is a part of Deniss that wants so badly to say yes, please, let me come back with you. He can picture it easily. Renting a house in the village, coaching at the Palladium every morning. Maybe he’d go into Lausanne and take culinary lessons in the afternoons. And in the evenings, not too often, but often enough, he’d stay after dinner with Steph and Chris, and wake up in their bed. It is almost everything he wants, and it would be so easy. And it’s the very seductiveness of that vision that makes his voice sharper than he means to, when he says, 

“No, you’re right. It’s not that simple.”

He’s spoken loudly enough that Stephane stirs. “What are you two talking about? You sound so serious.”

Deniss tries to put some lightness into his voice. “Just the whole course of my future life.”

“Hold on, I want to be awake for that.” Steph scrubs a hand across his face, and sits up, reaching for a glass of water. 

“I’m scared,” Deniss admits, once they are all settled again. “Living here, this last year, it was hard. Harder than I thought it would be. I’m not sure I can keep doing it. And now, this…it complicates things.”

“I’m sorry. Was I selfish after all, saying yes?” 

No! I’m so glad.” He reaches for Steph, tucking his head against the older man’s chest and mumbling. “I don’t regret anything. It’s just going to be so hard to watch you leave.” 

He can feel Steph nod, caressing Deniss’ back and shoulders.

“For me too.” Chris adds. “It was hard to watch you leave us a year ago. But I also understood when you said you needed to find your own path.” 

Steph kisses Deniss’ ear, and then his cheek, as he leans back a little. “You know, I think this isn’t as black and white as you are thinking.”

“Chris said there were options.”

“Of course he did.” Steph smiles, leaning across Deniss to kiss his partner. “Tell us about the options, love.”

“Ok.” Chris lies back and starts counting on his fingers. “One. We decide this was a one-time thing, and while enjoyable, isn’t going to be repeated. Two. We don’t make any specific plans, but leave the door open for a repeat at some point. Three. We decide we definitely want to do this again, and start to plan for another visit, here, or at home or somewhere else. Four, we decide that isn’t enough, and that we are going to more radically change things, like Deniss figuring out how to move to Switzerland.” 

Deniss has a lot of feelings about those options, but like always, Chris’ logical scenarios help calm his spinning mind. 

Steph is nodding. “And the most important thing that those scenarios all have in common is that we love you. Even if we never sleep together again. You’ll always have us.” Stéphane says it simply. Like those words aren’t the exact thing Deniss was craving, and afraid to ask for. But Stephane is never shy or embarrassed about matters of emotion. Deniss feels like his heart is expanding in his chest.

He means the kiss to be tender, but heat wakes up in him again at the touch of his lips on Steph’s. He opens his mouth and lets him in, letting thoughts of the future yield to the demands of the present. He reaches for Chris’ hand, puts it on his hip. 

The three of them move together, the rhythm sloppy, unhurried, until they are each spent.

Flopped back, Steph laughs. “I think we have crossed option one off the list, for now anyway. And anyway, we don’t have to decide the future, much less the whole course of our lives, right now.” 

Deniss smiles, “I, for one, would like breakfast.”

He finds it easier to say, watching the stove, “I still need to try things the hard way, for a bit. I’ve started something here, and I’m not ready to run away from that commitment.”

“If it helps, I don’t know anyone who has had a smooth transition post-retirement. If they think it’s easy in the first year, the crash comes harder later,” Steph says.

“He thought he was going to be a pop star,” Chris adds, and Steph swats him with the potholder. 

“Just…it helps, knowing I can still call on you. I can’t imagine not wanting to be together again.”

He looks up at Steph and Chris, leaning close together in his sunny kitchen, and feels lighter he has for a very long time.

“How about Portugal?”

***


End file.
